NCAA Holds Secret "Elite Football Symposium" for High-Profile College Players
This seems like a really, really good thing for the players. Says Alabama had six players attend and mentions Tua, Moses, and Jeudy. Not sure about the other three.
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This seems like a really, really good thing for the players. Says Alabama had six players attend and mentions Tua, Moses, and Jeudy. Not sure about the other three.
Link
The NFL combine is an event to see and be seen.
Walk the corridors of the Indiana Convention Center, or the nearby hotel lobbies and bars, and there's a parade of coaches, executives, scouts, draft prospects, agents and media. But amid the frenzy are hiding places, where important things happen.
As the saying goes, the combine you don't see is more interesting than the one you do.
It makes the combine a perfect spot for the NCAA to host college football's biggest stars. Tua Tagovailoa was in Indianapolis this past weekend, along with five of his Alabama teammates. So was Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm, joined by his blind-side protector, tackle Andrew Thomas. LSU All-America safety Grant Delpit ditched Mardi Gras to be there. Jonathan Taylor, college football's leading rusher in 2018, left frigid Wisconsin for slightly less-frigid Indy. The national champs were represented, as Clemson running back Travis Etienne and linebacker Isaiah Simmons both made the trip.
Did anyone spot Tua, Fromm, Taylor, Delpit and Etienne around town? Probably not. Did they know the NCAA brings in a group of top college players to this event every year? It's unlikely.
It's also by design. The NCAA's Elite Football Symposium, launched in 2017, provides high-profile college players information they need for the NFL transition, while shielding them from the combine spotlight. Held at NCAA headquarters, located several hundred yards from the hub of combine activity, the event puts players through three days of meetings about agents, money management, NFL contracts, scouting, social media and branding, and other topics.